IVR systems are well known, particularly for the automated handling of telephone calls by large corporations. Often such systems are used to handle simple queries (for example, to tell a customer the balance of his account or to book cinema tickets) or to handle initial call filtering to ensure that a customer is transferred to an operator or agent with the knowledge and skills required to handle a particular type of query.
A typical IVR system comprises a set of options which are presented to a user in spoken form. The set of options is often defined using a suitable programming language such as VoiceXML. A VoiceXML file can be parsed by a voice browser, which plays the sound associated with each option when it is invoked. The VoiceXML also defines the hierarchy of options so that the voice browser knows which sound it is appropriate to play to the user. The sounds that are played to the user may simply be pre-recorded audio files (for example, MP3 files) or they may be generated by text-to-speech (TTS) software.
Speech recognition software analyses the responses made by the user to the sounds played by the IVR system and takes appropriate action. This action may be to transfer the user to the correct operator or agent or to cause another sound or set of sounds to be played to the user (for example, if the user has entered a sub-menu).
Whilst IVR systems are clearly very useful for handling large volumes of simple queries in a timely and cost-effective manner and for handling routing of calls to the appropriate agent, they are notorious for frustrating users. Often users find themselves in the wrong queue and then end up being connected to the wrong agent. Alternatively, users may become so frustrated that they simply hang up.
These problems generally stem from poor design of the menu system used by the IVR, which may be difficult for a user to understand or be ambiguous or simply too long-winded for a user to listen attentively to.
Prior solutions have involved using after-call surveys or scorecards to gather the user's opinion on the IVR system, but users are generally reluctant to participate and are not often reliable in the answers they provide. Other options include listening to call recordings to determine whether any problems with the IVR menu options exist and what such problems are, but this is a very labour-intensive and hence expensive process.